Killing a Hierophant.

Ok, I've seen the new rules for the Hierophant bio-titan.

It can cause lots of damage, but that's not important, a stiff breeze could kill off half my army.

What is important is that it has 10W, T9, 2+ AS (And apparently 5++ inv.) , FNP and some kind of tyranid specific regeneration. (Like roll a d6 for every lost wound, regain on 6).

It's also gargantuan.

Poison wounds on 6s, thus we would need like 810 poison shots.

Dissies can't harm it.

A Tantalus would only cause like ½ a wound every time it scythevane.

A Huskblade/soultrap needs st6 to be able to wound it. And even then, it only causes d3 wounds per wound.

Implosion missiles and shattershard only causes d3 wounds. As does the hexrifle.

I was thinking that I could use the opponents stupidity and tank-shock it with a couple of raiders with shockprows and flickerfields. If he goeas for Death or Glory and at least one of them would passits 5++, the hierophant would die, but then realized it would only cause d3 wounds.

This leaves it only to 2 units;

1: Razorwing flocks; at 6 attacks each on the charge, to cause 10 wounds, after a 5++, FNP, you'd need 10x1,5x1,5x6x2 attacks, that's 270 attacks, which equals 45 charging bases. You can't field that many in a battle-forged list, but if you could, with masters included, it would cost a bit cheaper than a single unupgraded hierophant.

2: Harlequins, same number of attacks to kill, but only 4 attacks each, totals at 67,5 harlequins. You can't field that many in a battle-forged list either, but they would cost almost half again as a hierophant, if you could.

(Why is it so important to kill it on the charge? Because it will kill everything in cc by I1. )

So, how would you deal with it?

All though I most likely won't meet a list with one in, I would never refuse to play against one.

My FW policy is:

Don't know what it is.
Don't know what it does.
Don't know how to stop it.
I only know I must kill it.

At the level where your opponent is fielding a Hierophant, your obvioous tactic is called a REVENANT.

Stay in corner and pray it`s only a nightmare?

You're a bit off with the stats, still horrifying lol but he's S10, T8, 5W, 2+, 5++. No mention of FnP, but it has Mass Points to remove before it starts taking wounds. Dark Lances or Void Lances are probably our best, battle forged hope....unless you have a Titan yourself of course

Yeah, and by the time your opponent can afford a Heirophant you ought to have lances and Beast flocks to spare.

1++ wrote:

You're a bit off with the stats, still horrifying lol but he's S10, T8, 5W, 2+, 5++. No mention of FnP, but it has Mass Points to remove before it starts taking wounds. Dark Lances or Void Lances are probably our best, battle forged hope....unless you have a Titan yourself of course

Maybe in IA4, but I've seen it's rules in IA4: Second edition. It's as tough as I wrote.


And upgraded, it's worth a bit more than a revenant, all though a revenant would "one-shot*" it.

*Shooting with both pulsars at the same time, who shoot 2 shots each, is one-shooting, right?

1++ wrote:

You're a bit off with the stats, still horrifying lol but he's S10, T8, 5W, 2+, 5++. No mention of FnP, but it has Mass Points to remove before it starts taking wounds. Dark Lances or Void Lances are probably our best, battle forged hope....unless you have a Titan yourself of course

Unless something has changed between Escalation and 7th Ed, all Gargantuan Creatures have FnP by default and 'Mass Points' are no longer in the game.

Ahh right. My bad, not an IA expert. I must have been quoting outdated rules   

unless the BRB changed how Agonizers work... Vect + 9 archons loaded to the teeth with Agonizers and shadowfields would be how i'd make a stab at it. sounds like fun.

psycheer wrote:

unless the BRB changed how Agonizers work... Vect + 9 archons loaded to the teeth with Agonizers and shadowfields would be how i'd make a stab at it.  sounds like fun.

Still got to get past a 2+ save though. Plus that little unit of yours costs more than the titan!

Runes of Battle Jinx might help if I remember correctly. Or is there a way to gargantuan greatures to avoid it?

Vasara wrote:

Runes of Battle Jinx might help if I remember correctly. Or is there a way to gargantuan greatures to avoid it?

They're not immune to psychic powers anymore so that could work.

Dark Angel and Inquisition allies with Rad Launchers/Grenades? Take it's Toughness down by 2 which would help Dark Lances and Disintegrators.

If you're gonna use imperials, the best way to go is inquisition (allies) for 2 land raiders, (atleast one crusader or redeemer, 2 godhammers won't work), and Adepta Sororitas (Primary); 2 priests with eviscerators with a maxed out unit of Repentia each (well, almost maxed out unit for the one in tha godhammer, if you take one), and one Canoness with eviscerator, rosarius and the eternal warrior mantle in one of the units, and, in the background, a sororita command squad with loud hailer and banner of +1 attack for all friendly units within 12".

At 8 ws 4 attacks, even at strength 10, assuming the cannoness takes the hits, equals to 2 wounds off the canoness before I1.

Then at I1, there's 5 attacks that hit on rerollable 3+ and wound on rerollable 6 with ap2 AND 91 attacks that hit on rerollable 4+ and wound on rerollable 6 with ap2. (96 if both LRs are crusaders and/or redeemers)

That's one dead hierophant. Also, due to its stomps and possibly Incendiary Ichor*, the 2 repentia units and the canoness and the priests will die, but they (without 2 landraiders and a command squad) cost a little bit more than half a hierophant.

*You do not want to know what that is.

EDIT: Adepta sororitas shredding it doesn't help us much. However, rad-grenades are CC-only. I don't know about rad-launchers, but if that brings the hierophant down to T8, massed dissies would kill it with volume of ap2 fire.

I'm just spitballing here, but take a look at the wording of hexrifle. Its a sniper weapon, so it wounds on a 4+ and not poison and on a six it beats his armor with rending. If you do wound it has to take a toughness test which fails on a 6 regardless of toughness. If he fails the save and rolls a 6, the Heirophant is 'removed'. Imagine that happening on the first wound, your opponent would cry...

Duke Sliscus + Archon with Shadow Field

+ Eldar Farseer

+ Fortune

= Tarpit.

The Duke's Venom Blade wounds on a 2+ and ignores armor on a 5/6 to wound. He will be rolling a 2++ invulnerable save, rerolling failed saves (1/36 chance to die each time he saves). His weapon skill is 6, which matches the Hierophant.

Have the Archon tank the wounds (he has the same 1/36 chance to die) and give him a venom blade. He won't do many wounds, but he'll keep Duke Sliscus alive turn after turn. He has weapon skill 7, so makes your majority weapon skill a 7! The hierophant thus only hits on a 5+.

Best of all, the Duke is worth bringing for his Combat Drugs and Kabalite Warrior buffs already. He is not mission critical after deployment. The Eldar Farseer can attach to some other unit within 24", cast other psyker powers, and generally be effective. The only sunk points are found in the Archon. Congratulations, you have just spent roughly 100 points to negate 1000 points of your opponent.

Edit: You will eventually get unlucky on the "Stomp" table. A roll of 6 = dead Archon, no saves. You might want to bring multiple archons!

attackdrone wrote:

The Duke's Venom Blade wounds on a 2+

Wounds on a 6 only vs Gargantuans I'm afraid.

Yeah, combat's not the way. Poison of any kind wounds on a 6, so cannon venoms, trueborn squads with cannons... just more and more dice, and it'll eventually go down. I'm confident with the right firepower you can kill that 1000 pt model with a far smaller loss of points yourself.

thesaltedwound wrote:

Yeah, combat's not the way. Poison of any kind wounds on a 6, so cannon venoms, trueborn squads with cannons... just more and more dice, and it'll eventually go down. I'm confident with the right firepower you can kill that 1000 pt model with a far smaller loss of points yourself.

Poison shooting is probably the least effective thing you can do to this...thing! On average it will take nearly 7 Venoms to do a single wound to it. That's 450+ points without even considering the minimum cost of the unit required to unlock the Venom in the first place. And that's just to do one wound (which it can regenerate on a 6). I think we really need to look at AP2 weaponry to bypass its armour. Dark Lances are our best bet. Void Lances/Mines from Voidraven bombers could also be good.

How about Taloses?

ALL the Taloses. A large number of them, all charging ands Smashing the thing for Str10 AP2. Its one attack each sure, but it might help.

Squidmaster wrote:

How about Taloses?

ALL the Taloses. A large number of them, all charging ands Smashing the thing for Str10 AP2. Its one attack each sure, but it might help.

You're actually marginally better off taking an additional cc weapon and not smashing. You're still AP2 due to being a MC but you get more attacks and do slightly more damage on average (0.25 wounds vs 0.18).

Is it Taloses? Why not Talosi? Or Taloos?

Anyways. With DE I'd just bring all the Ravagers! My rule in Apocalypse is you can never have enough Dark Lances ^^

I've always enjoyed the term "Taloi" when I see it floating about.

If we're gonna use craftworld allies, then dooming it and pointing as many shuriken catapult guardians as possible will take it down in no-time due to the huge amount of bladestorm (Rending). However, since you only can ally in 40 guardians in a battleforged list, but need 51 to kill it, you'll have to find another 21 shuriken/rending shots from somewhere else.

Wraith-guard + doom can be quite good too.

It you're gonna be a jerk and have a tailored unbound list, the cheapest way (pointwise) to take it down is to use a spiritseer to jinx* it, and then assault it with 23 units of beastmasters, each unit consisting of a single beastmaster with agoniser, and not a single beast.

*Doesn't work if you do not roll up jinx. However, since it's unbound, you can have a farseer council to as good as guarantee jinx.

Using a bunch of beastmasters to bring down a giant beast is fitting, in my eyes.

thesaltedwound wrote:

Using a bunch of beastmasters to bring down a giant beast is fitting, in my eyes.

I really love that there is no unfluffy DE list, as DE are the kind of guys who tailor lists and go WAAC, fluffwise.